Panic buying... Hendo's!

Apparently supermarket shelves up and down the country have been stripped bare over the past few days due to wallies panic buying bread, milk and soup (sorry but unless you live in the Shetland Islands or somewhere equally remote, panic buying at the hint of snow makes you a wally). 

Neil and I have been doing some panic buying of a different sort after getting up this morning to discover we'd nearly run out of Hendo's.

The hallowed sauce

Now, to anyone from South Yorkshire, this represents a very serious emergency. In fact, when we win the Lottery and get round to designing our fantasy kitchen we may well install a big red panic button that when depressed activates a siren, flashing red lights and a speaker that blasts out "WARNING, WARNING, HENDO'S LEVEL CRITICAL" in a computerised female monotone. 

For those who have no idea what I'm talking about, Henderson's Relish is a bit like Worcestershire sauce, but ten million billion squillion trillion zillion times tastier. There is quite literally nothing edible in this world that cannot be improved with a liberal splash of Hendo's. And unlike other sauces which have fish bits in them (yuk) Hendo's is veggie and vegan friendly too.

Henry Henderson first began making his relish in Sheffield in the late 19th century at 35 Broad Lane. Today it's still produced within half a mile of the site where the first bottle was filled, in a tiny factory near the city's university.

Over the years Hendo's has achieved cult-like status, no doubt partly because it's still hard to obtain outside South Yorkshire or North Derbyshire unless you order online. The company's website is full of poems and celebrity endorsements, tales of people taking their treasured bottle of the good stuff to exotic locations and even using it in their wedding cake.

Sheffield sons Sean Bean and David Blunkett like a splash on their fish'n'chips and Peter Stringfellow is reportedly a fan, although it might be best not to think about where he likes to put it! It's even been imortalised in a song by Sheffield band The Everly Pregnant Brothers. The chorus lyrics are at the bottom of this blog - not to be read if you're of a sensitive disposition.

Growing up in the area, we always had a bottle of Hendo's in the cupboard or on the table. The other "W" relish variety was a dirty word in my household. 

Venturing out into the world I usually took a bottle of Hendo's with me and made it my business to spread the legend. I spent a year working in Edinburgh at Deadline Scotland and used to take it back up north for my colleagues after every home visit. On one memorable journey I sent 18 bottles of limited edition Sheffield Wednesday Hendo's bouncing down an escalator at Manchester Airport when a carrier bag split.

I currently supply a handful of people in the Derby Telegraph office because it's easily obtainable in Chesterfield but not quite so easy 30 miles further south. When friends say "bring a bottle" they're not necessarily talking about wine!

Use the sauce!

And Neil and I have a modest shrine to the relish in our kitchen - a graphic print by Sheffield artist Jim Connolly with the mantra "use the sauce".

Things get very tense when we get to the bottom of the bottle. It's actually stocked in most major supermarkets in our area so we used to get it with our weekly shop. But this morning we ventured on in the snow to the row of shops round the corner from our house and were delighted to find it at Hasland Fruit and Flowers. 

Phew, crisis averted. We can spice up any store cupboard basics with a splash of Hendo's, so let it snow!













Hendo's by The Everly Pregnant Brothers (to be sung to the tune of Coldplay's Yellow):

F*** Worcester sauce, that s***'s no good for you...
It tastes like f***ing glue...
And it's just not Hendo's